After the protests of indie music fans clogged up Apple’s music store with bogus iMixes, the company is close to completing a deal to get more indie music on the service.
Hundreds of artists have not been able to get their music on iTunes because lengthy, piecemeal negotiations with individual indie labels. Sony and Napster managed to get round this by doing a single deal with the Association of Independent Music, the UK trade body that represents many of the labels in question.
This means that popular acts such as the White Stripes will finally be available for download, and music fans will be able to download Franz Ferdinand rather than Franz Liszt. Not that there’s anything wrong with Franz Liszt – other than he didn’t come from Glasgow.